Recently I was speaking to an Honours student from a local university. He was talking to me about his thesis on social media. I thought he described it brilliantly when he said social media is really about having a conversation – but we use our words over different mediums. He then went on to describe [...]
3 Reasons Why Asking for Referrals Can Backfire!
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A New Website – How to Plan for Success
You’ve decided you need a website to help market your business online. Your dream is for people to find you easily in the free Google listings and once they click through to your site to stay, have a look around, start to feel warm about your business and ultimately…to call you, fill in a contact [...]
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The Pitfalls of Being Unique
Steve Jobs was just one of a few unique leaders who’s departure may have crippled his company permanently. While he was inarguably a great leader, I would suggest that he did not always provide leadership – at least to the degree that Apple requires for long-term viability. The one great gap in his succession plan [...]
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Create Your Future Now
What sort of future you are working toward?
Now, more than ever, we need to engage in critical thinking about the future we want to create. The current global circumstances demand we be smarter than ever but how do we approach this?
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First Step: Open Your Eyes
Remember the old Monkey Bars at school, and how you had swing yourself across the rungs? The timing was crucial, and the secret was to keep moving. Hesitate too long and your weight loosened your grip and you dropped to the ground, having to start all over. The key to change is being able to [...]
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It Takes a Village
Whether you are a solo operator, leader of a large multi-national corporation, or anything in between, you still depend on a team to build success. While it’s a lot less visible if you own your own business, you still have a team working with and for you. To what degree do your people support your [...]
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Crunching Numbers for Customer Service
Mere decades ago, customer service hardly rated a mention when talking business – it was simply a given. Today’s vastly different consumer climate demands that all business owners are sensitive any ruffle in the customer service fabric. Where previously, customer service was what people did, these days the value of delivering better customer service is [...]
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5 Reasons Why Women Are Natural Networkers
Whenever I am asked the question, do men make better networkers than women? – I always highlight the differences in communication styles. I don’t believe one gender is better than the other at networking. However, many women incorrectly doubt their networking ability. So let’s explode a few myths. Here are 5 things that contribute to [...]
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Start the New Financial Year with a Plan
This is the last month of the financial year, so it is a good time to decide how you are going to do things differently over the next year to give your business a boost. So what are you going to do to fire up your business for the 2013–2014 financial year? What inspirations and [...]
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Intention Setting for Glorious Business Outcomes
Why is intention setting to achieve awesome business outcomes of value you may ask? Well, when you PAUSE to consciously consider what high quality outcomes you desire for your business (or any other area of your life for that matter), it enables you to alter any habitual behaviour, like procrastination or lack mentality such as [...]
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Small Business – You Have to Be In It to Win It
FACT – The number of businesses starting up has decreased by 98%. Starting up a business in this day and age is not for the faint hearted. It takes time, money, persistence, sleepless nights and dealing with an array of issues you never even knew existed. But if you have what it takes, and do […]
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Selling to Linear & Fuzzy Clients Before Christmas
Something happens after the running of the Melbourne Cup in Australia. It’s as if businesses take a collective deep breath, and then start a mad slide into Christmas. Christmas parties are planned, last decade’s tinsel starts to adorn offices, and people go into one of two mental modes: Go slow we are in holiday mode, […]
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Six Steps to Boost Your Business in The New Year
Small to medium sized business owners and managers are focusing on several business boosting activities in the pursuit of success in 2014. In terms of intended investment of time and/or money across various business elements, the three areas most likely to see an increase according to the MYOB Business Monitor were: Customer retention strategies – […]
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Failing to Plan is like Planning to Fail
Only 47% of small business owners have an exit strategy, and of those, 22% simply intend to close their doors and walk away. A detailed exit strategy should be in place from the day you start your business. It should be as much a part of your business plan as your cash flow forecast or […]
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Make it Count from the Outset
FACT – Of all businesses started between 2007 and 2009, one third have already failed. The odds are already stacked against us as business owners, so if we want to play in this space, we have to make it count. We need to be stacking the odds in our favour as much as possible from […]
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Five-year Business Plans are Worth Doing.
If you are looking to the future, it’s hard to overstate the importance of having a good long-term business plan. Why? Business operators who are able to adapt to new challenges – be it a financial crisis, an economic downturn or a natural disaster – are likely to perform better in the long term. Being adaptable means […]
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How to Create a Soul Goal for You and Your Business
Human beings are strange creatures. As soon as we set a goal, the average human being will automatically start comparing where we are at now in contrast to how we perceive we should be travelling towards the goal. Whilst this can be very motivating for some, for others it can have the exact opposite effect […]
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Have You Seen These New Features on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn’s mantra is do more, better. Not a bad mantra as they continually upgrade and change their systems. The latest change is one of the better ones, I believe. At least once a week you are probably receiving a summary of all the people who have changed jobs, are having a birthday or having a […]
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Are You And Your Business Ready For Growth?
The thought of expanding your business from a small business to a larger entity is something that drives many business owners. But it requires careful planning to get it right. Any small business owner who’s tasted success in some form, will undoubtedly have thought about the prospect of expansion. Rapid business growth can be an […]
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Is it Time to Ditch the Business Plan?
I’ve long been an advocate for very thorough planning – especially contingency planning. I think it stems from my time in the army (a long time ago) where I learnt that “Prior Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Performance”. Being much more optimistic than pessimistic, I have since made that into “Prior Preparation and Planning Promotes Positive […]
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